-

how it begins

you need to look in the eyes
of the person who broke you,
even if that person was yourself

-

rose

when roses grow from the
concrete,
they are cut down
but when they grow back, they are
more beautiful
than ever.

-

he

he looked you in the eye
and you danced
but when you took off your
pointe shoes,
they were full of blood

-

kintsugi

the night
you left
i shattered
every dish
and my own
heart
and then
mended it in gold

-

whatever

whatever hurt you
can no longer
touch you
because i
am here


-

in the la summer,
the heat doesn't whisper
it swells

and the hottest of the places
were the buses
big greenhouses on wheels

but i rode them,
for i had no car
and if i did

it would've been stolen
even though
i moved away from hidden hills

and now lived
on the face
of the sun

after a while,
i found my own
ways to rebel

drink gin out of
my water bottle
on the trip back home,

sit in the elderly
and handicapped
section

and that was what i was
doing when she entered the
bus

she was obviously ancient
and walked with a cane
so of course i moved to the side

as she passed me
the first thing i noticed
other than her skin that was almost purple

was the tattoo of the number
7
across her cheek

and no, this wasn't a young
woman
not the type to spend late nights

recording raps
for soundcloud in the back
of a crack house

we looked through each other for a
second,
and then she said to me

do you see it?

i shook my head
i didn't know what she
even meant

then she extended her hands
and still, nothing
was there

do you see it, she said again
i said no
she sighed

i have so much to tell you,
young woman
so much you need to know

i nodded
because when a crazy
old woman says things like that to you

you nod and smile
so much you need to know
her eyes were misted over

like lakes in the winter time,
cream in the bowl of
a tabby cat

we sat in silence
for a good while,
and then she looked at me again

in the summer, back home she said
when we left school
me and my friends would go drinking

there was a place called the golden shovel
and they had a huge pool table
me and mary would play, smoke cigarettes and

listen to jazz
it was the only time i
felt like i was alive

but when the cops came
mary was there, and i wasn't
they shot her dead

they said the bar was a hideout
for everything good and black
that my mother told me i should stand for

seven died,
and they said the golden shovel
was used to dig graves

i got this last year
she raised a long, peeling finger
to her cheek,

pointing at the seven

the bus ground to a halt as she
put her finger down
i looked at her

this is my stop
she said
before giving me a folded piece of paper

this is a poem i wrote

i took it and opened it, but by the time i
read it, she was already gone

*We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

dear depression,
you were the girl next door,
everything i was curious and scared of
and when you struck me,
it was more shocking than if you came up behind
me and kissed me on the lips

dear depression,
you were my best friend
for so long, my only friend
and when i was going to sleep
you talked to me,
told me i wasn't good enough
but your voice
was better than no voice

dear depression,
you pushed me to the edge
and i nearly tumbled off
but at the end of the day
i am still breathing

dear depression,
you pushed me over,
and i fell
but as i fell,
you whispered in my ear
*write

o, rèmy martin dreamer,
with cheap hen on your breath.
the good brown is not the backwoods
or juul pods in virgina tobacco,

&

maybe the good brown manifests in my hair,
before the ammonia, touching my scalp
and turning it as red as my tongue after
a strawberry lollipop. everything
tastes like you.

&

i wish i could touch you again,
just hold your hand, brush your
elbow, play with your hair.
but i also wish i could drive a thousand
machetes into your flesh, while screaming

&

writhing with trash-sickened fervor .
you are *****-inducing. you smell
like a thousand patchouli-burning
stoners, but you feel like velvet
and taste like sugar-sweat.
you might be popping a xan right now,
knee-deep in beautiful girls.
and i'm still dope-sick.

//

if a woman
drops her clothing
and shows what is
too precious to
be shown even on
film,

she has her miranda rights,
her indecent exposure trials
and ever dollar used to bail her
out of a cold cell were they offered
her a hospital gown

but she also has the
eyes that follow her up
the street, asking, begging
to touch
and if that woman says no,
or says nothing
than the woman still has

control of what is done
to her body,
control of every hand that tries to
pry away her god-given
right to be safe in her own skin

//

if a girl decides to
wear a short shirt,
or fishnet tights,
or bright lipstick

that costs anywhere from ninety-nine cents
to ninety dollars,
and she applies it with a heavy hand,
like her mascara and eyeshadow,
then she is still

human, she is still
a valid human being
who does not deserve
your time and voice
to call her a ****
or say something along
the lines of

don't go out looking like that
or you'll get *****
but **** is never,
ever, ever
the fault of the victim

//

if a woman
or girl
decides to cover her hair,
to abide by her
religion, the religion that
held the hands of every woman
in her family,
from sister to great-great-great-great-great

grandmother
she is not a threat
to our country
she is a member of our society,
a valuable and beautiful one, at that
who's culture can guide us
to be even kinder
in the name of god

and if a woman
or girl
decides to long sleeves
and a high-necked top
with a long skirt
alongside her hijab,

she is not matronly,
she is modest,
and modest is as beautiful
as a gucci crop-top
or a pair of sky-high louboutins

//

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

*there were men
who were there for us,
who fought for us,
and then now,
there is a man who will fight
us as we march,
so we need to be strong
and support each other,
remember the golden rule,
and know each of our gods
would want this for
our world

am i too much for you?
is it that fact i have a loose *****, or two, or three
did i really need to see you through for every day you
touched me, looked me in the eye, said the fire will never die
but it did

and that hoodie fills a space between two legs,
square pegs into round holes, binge eating until you
hurt your throat
but you still devote yourself to being
skinny

and that word has plagued me for so long, like a song, like a call, and now i need to know, before i fall, am i skinny enough to be loved? is my collarbone every going to be a wishing well, will i burn in hell for the simple sin of being fat?

but in reality, the only real causality was myself
i force fed myself discipline, hoped someone
would listen, but they never did

even the shrinks said i was crazy
and that i was lazy for not going out, excising until
my skin split and a beautiful butterfly emerged
then i'd surge into battle like a goddess

but when your thighs are thick and you aren't modest,
and when you wear lipstick too thick like a woman
with double Ds and an ache between her knees
you know that if you were skinny, you'd never have
these problems, and if you did
you'd know how to solve them
to be skinny
is to be graceful

even in suicidal rages
that flip through pages and pages of stories before they rip my own
from existence
need to be kept under control and kept at a distance like
a tiger that has the taste for human flesh

but now i know i'm the best, because i have a good ****,
long legs and a pretty face
but i'm too hard to replace in this overpriced world
where girls are told to starve themselves

to a neutral, non-pear shape
until their ******* are the tip of an hourglass
their waists are too thin to last
and their eyes are longing for even the tiniest indulgence
avoiding food and any substance
that would jeopardize
skinny

but then i realized
if skinny was so important
then why did all those who were it
probably also were just a little bit away from going insane
and we were in the same boat, staying afloat together
on the ocean of
skinny

so i wrote this poem
for every single girl or woman
who needed a book or a booking
to make them feel beautiful, and by beautiful i mean
skinny

but beautiful can be skinny,
but it can also be thighs like tree trunks,
arms like rivers
and a body that delivers nothing but happiness to that of it's owner

and my body is not some loaner car you
can trash and get away with
there will be fines,
for i am fine,

but in those times, where
nothing was ever promised to me
i started to see

beautiful could mean
staying up to take care of your kids,
single-mothering and being glad your husband
got rid of himself before you could, because
you can do a much better job without the chain-smoke
and you stay woke
forever
because skinny is a construct

or it could mean
studying in waters of student loans,
feeling alone as the only ******* campus
but working hard to become a lawyer or a doctor,
she will always be her mother's daughter

i'd say words stronger than this,
but there are children here,
but ***** skinny!
i am beautiful,
you are beautiful
and by beautiful
i mean anything you want it to mean.

my mother taught me how to work the dirt,
grub it between palms, savor the smells of chickenshit, and
raw flesh. she knows that crops are grown fifty-fifty,

a little coddling, a little resentment. look at the thing
crawling out of your leaking womb, purpled with lacking.
she taught me how to heal, let my body mend itself with

time. when i was born, the salt of my mother clouded around my
eyes. they broke me to let me live, and so forth. but i have never
stopped with the needing. i became a **** in the dirt i worked.

empty, glad with unwanting. i wanted to spread my branches and show my mother the world she forgot. i remember. i remember.
but my chants fell upon deaf ears. my prose too purpled to read.

if you can bring nothing to this dirt
but another dead body,
this is not a garden for you.

o, darling
daylight has never been your most flattering
light

and how could it be?
you never sleep,
because life is but a dream

like that old
children's song
goes

dear god of boujee
women, the ones with
bloodstained louboutins

let me autotune myself to sound inhuman,
say my prayers to
you

in the dying light
of the atl
freeways

my only hymn i have to
offer is that of
migos

and instead of bread and wine
i have lean and
xanax

o, darling
our eyes will never
age

and new money, who dis?
will forever be the closest thing
we have to a mantra

you might as well
asked me to drink
bleach through a straw,

boiling to a point where
i could smell the sharpness
like a needle through my nose

and when girls say they
tried to drink men away, i
laugh at them

because yellow teeth
and lemonade
from the sourest of lemons,

squeezed and strained through a
sugared cloth by the hands of
your mother's mother

still tastes like ****,
sour as it may be
life is nothing more

than an endless
under-sink
cabinet

it is not a knife
when you gut the fish,
it's your words.
you live in a cabin,
and when you leave the cabin

everything else becomes
the facade of the forest.
my roots are here, beneath
your words, beneath the wet earth,
i am a tree growing here,

spreading my branches
like a dancer,
i am grateful
for the way you **** me,
i am grateful for the way

i die like a fish,
flopping and gasping
for air. i wait for the fire
to come, it comes ever
summer

and when it comes
for
you,
i know the prayers
you whisper;

the cabin never
falls, the cabin never
burns,
and the river
*never runs dry

i have cravings for you

midday, i make my trip
from my brooklyn brownstone

to purchase you,
a woman with a chip in her tooth

and a painted-lip manicure
hands you to me

i treasure you,
feel your weight between

thumb and forefinger,
stashed in my bones

like the ocean you were
born from

i hold your on my
way outside, look

down the street
in awe

because in this city
everything shines

and when you peel back
the layers of skin

it's curious, what
a mistake a body

could make

birds
heads under heaps of wings
suddenly stir

and
the telephone wire
is suddenly alive

with
songbird-gentle
chirps

with
owl-vicious
hoots

with
raven-mysterious
caws

and yes,
i know there are
too many poems

about birds
but you just have to remember
the raven

can mimic human speech
and sounds
so nevermore might not be such a stretch

that some ducks
sleep with one eye open
just like the women who lack trust

and that mockingbirds
can preserve songs
of extinct creatures

with bones too hollow
to stash anger or regret
and eyes bright enough
to see the daybreak
hours before all of us

i was planted, nurtured
and gorged myself
on my mother's love, some sort of fertilizer

i grew, where and when
they thought i wouldn't
and i thrived

i bloomed
and i was beautiful
you cannot touch me

i wilted,
i fell down, but my daughters know what to do
but i will come back

my thorns will be remembered
alongside my beauty
but that doesn't matter anymore

you can cut my flowers down,
but you cannot keep spring
from coming

from between the soft-pink
of your lips,
pillows of moonlight fall.

the moment we never met held
nothing but shame for me,
longing gazes across the field.

you didn't know i existed.
oh, to be young. and dead.
i recovered from my bought of goodbye cruel world

instead, yours took you.
i dance underneath your teeth
in the softness of nightingale tears.

i arise, with dreams of nothing
but your face.
will i see you again,
this time under the stars?

sometimes
i pray for you
not to god,

but to all
the dead poets
we love,

they are all
pretentious pushpin
ghosts, gapping out

of skin
and turning around
to devour,

rumi always asks for me
to listen, and i see
why i pray in the first place

not for your salvation,
but so you can blossom
into the warrior

i know you are

ghosts
slip in and
out of my lungs

wearing nothing
but shame across their
faces

i have waited for so long
because in times
like these

i become nothing more
than a thorn prickling the
tip of a little girl's finger

a nuance, in the beauty
but still something
that needs to be avoided

her
voice alone
drives me
to tears, i'm crying
in my mom's bedroom,
holding an ancient phone
and a slip of paper my
therapist gave me,
a number to call if
i felt the world was too
much, and it was.
she asks me too many questions.

i filled myself up
used holes in my skin, scratches from rumbles
to create dams that only held emotion

i ate away at the spare parts
let my hair fall to the ground
and rise like a phoenix, a different man/boy/beast than before

i was gone with the wind, right before you came
and tried to free me
from myself

i am so real, you should be scared
i am so alive, you should be scared
i am so close to being dead, you should look me in the eye

soc girls, look at them
and envy every madras sweater
or tuff corvette

i want the money, the heater
unloaded, the switch pressed
against my enemy

and this time, with a chance
of winning
i am possessed

and his spirit
is nothing for me
to interfere with

you think of me,
all i think about
is paul newman and a ride home

when i die, i want to be buried with
books, a pen and a piece of paper
because i want to write

every robert frost line,
and have it carved
into my own flesh

i am beautiful, no matter
how long the hair
or how short

they say i am a
hood, a greaser
but all i hear
is *stay gold

take away the razor blade
and bury it with your old
self

take the blue hair
and drench it in
black

laugh
free, finally
free from your old prison

of skin, i am here
and you have nothing to
fear

if there isn't a chance of heaven
you claw your way up to the pearly gates
and you'll slap the saints and tell them

i never believed, and then
they'll let you in
they always let you in in the end

sing your songs
dance wherever you need to dance to feel
anything

with me, we will no longer be numb,
tongues dry, mouths dumb
in wonder at this amazing world

one day, you will be happy,
not in the body you were born with
but the body you created for yourself

i care
i care
*i care

lesson one

your body belongs to the world. men are aloud to stare, to call from cars as red as your cheeks. other women are allowed to judge you, whisper at you behind your back. because in our world, it's way too common for a woman to be forced against each other, instead of together. it would be better if we were a team, not a country in the midst of a civil war. but ******* happens.

lesson two

you cannot be fat. if your legs are trunks and your hair is leaves, then you must be cut down. starve yourself down to a neutral frame, a canvas so to speak. then paint on ******* like mountains. teeth as white as snow. hair as blonde as sand. then you'll be the perfect landscape. the perfect girl.
that's all that matters.

lesson three

shave! take the razor and trim your gardens, for god's sake girl! no one will want you if you look like an overgrown yard that someone abandoned years ago. it's disgusting for one. no one wants to see something natural on a woman. at least, not men.

lesson four

men have standards that they've been shown. be thick-lipped, like kylie. be bootylicious like beyoncè. be thin like gigi.
be perfect.

lesson five

everything i ever learned was a lie.

life makes you
want to feel
nothing

but death
makes others
feel too much

light; a process
you are nothing more than a cell in the ocean
a single drop makes you a canyon
so **** the schizophrenic gods
after you've been deprived for so long
your brain starts to make things up
because once the nothingness becomes tangible
it ceases to exist

After Danez Smith's Dinosaurs in the Hood

Let's make a movie called *Lil Peep In Heaven
Transpotting meets 8 Mile meets six xanax bars
There should be a scene where Lil Peep climbs up a few flights of Stairs and makes it to the pearly gates, because there has to be pearly Gates

Don't let Bella Thorne star in this.
In her version she tongue-kisses Peep,
Chews scenery in platform boots and bright pink
Ripped jeans. **** that, Peep has a tattoo removed
By a saint, his laser is proof of all that is good

I want a scene where Peep throws his pill bottles
At Ganesha, a scene where Allah tells Peep he'll
Rot in his grave forever if he doesn't stop
His antics. Don't let GothBoiClique hold a
Funeral for Gustav. I don't want any of that

Sentimental **** about love and how life is too
Short. This movie is about a man/boytoy/ugly and dying thing,
Restarting his life with all the real-*** gods and patron saints and
Deities
Of every religion and every afterlife

I don't want some funny, dreadhead living in LA with a tattooed stick And poke commanding presence. This is not a vehicle for someone to Play Peep, this is a vehicle for Peep to play himself.]
I want his *******, white or not, praying. I want them far from their Knees.

I want Lil Peep to ride in a Benz truck down from the clouds, Screaming with spittle flying from his mouth the entire time.
I want Layla to post another video of Gustav slapping pans together Like a child. And I want Peep to see it all.

But this can't be a death movie. This can't be a death movie. This Movie can't be dismissed because it's too dark, or that a dead man is Playing the leading role. This movie can't be about crying, or cause people to cry. This movie can't be about a long history of emo coming To an end. This movie can't be about dying.

No one can say Peep is a pill-popping ******* who deserved his death Who wouldn't say it to his cadaver. No big pharmacy jokes in this movie. No bar, capsules or gels in the heroes, and Lil Peep never dies & Lil Peep never dies & Lil Peep never dies. Besides, the only reason I want to make this movie is for the first scene anyway; Lil Peep climbing up the cloudy stairs, his eyes dilated & empty

                                   the heaven before him filled with congratulations

even in our best
light, we, as humans
are irrepressible

even in bodies
made of stardust,
bodies that aren't ours

at all,
we still are
wildfires

think, what
is ours,
what is truly ours?

and what is impermanent
as the stars in sky
just ready to collapse?

there are rivers of us
on earth,
there are bodies who has dissolved

into said river,
and filled everything up
into some unholy flood

even in our best light,
we as humans
are irresponsible

isn't it funny
how nothing
is real?

i thought love only existed in hollywood movies,
and then life, but in life, everything
*****

i guess i was drawn to the parts you
hated about yourself, maybe because
i know how to pick them

halsey sung that she liked the bad
guys, and then i wrote this poem
and she took it back

i have the power of a thousand hurricanes
i am a pair of worn out doc martens
i am the armageddon

and men don't know ****
i ain't a trap queen, but i don't
fear ****

i could love the entire seven billion,
and no one would be like
you

but when you look at me
i see nothing but your eyes
when you leave me

your skin
is not my skin
and it never will be

but your skin
stretched tight,
under creased jeans

and half-eaten seams
breaking to the beat
of the *****-tonk music

is enough to give me faith
there is some good
in this world,

we took our boats out
onto the shore,
beached them

in seconds after the lake
decided she didn't
agree with the politics behind

every love like ours,
you drowned
and i stayed afloat

but how will you swim
to me,
when the sky

is filled with
nothing but
planets,

when everything
is unapologetically
black?

in new york, we milly rock
dance close enough to smell
each other, far enough

to never touch,
i have my own funny
stories about us,

our party tricks
and burning soul,
we need jesus, don't we?

but oh, what lies we tell
we both know this life will ****
us before anything (or anyone) else

but i'm back in brooklyn,
caught up, dress to impress
pop up, car skid

you loose your mind
we move away from brooklyn,
now we live on the face of the sun

we are not lovers
we just scream at each other not
to switch sides,

without commitment, we are
nothing, we need moderation,
nowadays,

i try to wash you out
of my mind
spoiler alert: i can't

i'm still stuck on those days
back in new york
when we milly rocked

meanwhile,
summer is not
ours

it is not
a celebration,
it is teddy bears

on street corners,
bodega flowers
on makeshift graves,

distorted faces of
home-printed memorials
on t-shirts

the same color and
texture as what
the dead boy was selling,

meanwhile,
summer is nothing more
than closed houses,

decks with grandmothers
scowling down at the teenagers
who are not sure

if
they
are even real

somewhere, stars hidden by light pollution.
below, girls huddle. in corners, under couches, behind

headboards of cheap bunk beds. girls become gasoline, votaile
and ready to be ignated with a single flame. at least burn down

the house, at least spit out their lithium into an empty water bottle.
okay. i won't get started on the honda civic. it knows what it did.

bad man. bad desire. bad day to be sadgirl. but here, not hell,
not purgatory. girls can't recall anything, for threat

of severance. here, there is no language for joy,
only cheap rewards and the occasional Sour Patch Kid.

when snow falls we play in it and cry. please, don't
call us imprisoned, call it a next step.

i say my own name when i write.
i go out for pizza and sadly, come back.

she holds me
and suddenly
i forget why i
was crying

after robin coste lewis*

the dogs do not have names
so you just call them
with a whistle
they bark still and still and still

they are not animals
they are just humans
that have lived out their lives
and found a new body

the dogs do not speak english
so you bark back
and they look at you,
ears raised

and mouths dry
and dumb, tongues,
rough like sandpaper
and teeth that shine like enamel pins

the dogs do not run
they move like water
muscles like leaves in
autumn

all you need is
an ocean calling
your name, the dogs
can't give you that

the dogs are all you need,
as they run and whisper to
each other
they do not speak english
so you curse each one in tsimshian

i am scared of the night
because i'm afraid
i'll become it

sometimes the sticky-sweet of baltimore air
is a little too much

and screws pop loose like
bullets out of guns

back before the ghetto,
there was a white man who came here

married his cousin, went crazy
nevermore, nevermore

but now the park were he used
to play as a child is a public housing project

where the only poetry is that of puff-puff-pass,
chalk outlines peeling and melting in the midday sun

and a child who speaks to his murdered brother underneath his breath
as he pulls the trigger on his very first gun

i like to think i don't write for
publicity, i write for myself

but what artist could say that?
who doesn't want

their moment in the
spotlight?

this poem might be
the hardest to write ever

because i promised myself
i would be genuine

not exaggerate
not tell lies

so i guess
i should get started

and leave the prefaces to
the famous authors

not the poets
or the lost ones

--------------------

i have something to say to
you

you, who is beautiful
despite every word thrown from

an unknown hand
across a glass screen

you, who is beautiful
despite every scar or burn

or open wound you
inflicted on yourself

you, who is beautiful
despite every raised hand

and every shard of broken glass
in class, the kids with no faces and too much to say

you, who is beautiful
despite note you wrote and crumpled up

you used to write i'm sorry into your skin
but you have nothing to be sorry about

you, who is beautiful
despite everything anyone ever said to you

or anything you ever said
to yourself

you are still alive and alive and alive
because now the storm is over

and it's time for the rainbows to shine

I
three a.m.

there's a certain
type of loneliness
when the nothingness
becomes everything
and everything becomes your face

II
tooth and bone

i don't remember much
but i do remember
when i promised you
a temple of teeth
but my hands are swollen
and my mouth is bone dry

III
requiem*

to whoever it may concern,
will you still love me when
i'm gone?
we both knew this was coming
but i didn't leave anything
behind

it worries me,
three a.m.

and i'm not
sure how many

times i can write
this poem

she
is the only
one who brings her
own wine
to the party
and
it's always cliquot

she
is that girl,
find her perfume
on your supreme hoodie
but she will leave,
and you know,
she fears nothing

she
is too white
to wash out of your
duvet, too rich
to devour whole
and too bougie
to ever live a normal
life

she
is the space
between her thighs
and nothing else
her eyes are as empty
as the macy's storefront
but she's better than that,
louie v all day, every day

she
is urban,
the hypebeast,
the sneaker head,
the cool girl
she is everything them
white girls want but don't
need

she
is a nightmare,
the disembodied hand
sends a backhand slap
across your cheek,
the mother who drank too much,
the mother who's jewelry
blinded you

she
is a poem that
rambles towards the
last stanza, just like
this one, and she
is my elusive lover
*she is a ******* goddess

My grandfather is a poet
He writes of a man’s purpose, his ergon
And of the group home he once ran, for parents who didn’t understand the curse, or possible gift of their child’s disability
He said there was a boy who floated, despite being palsied
And who yearned for a man with a beard like snow
Sometimes when I dream of things that I’ve never seen, his poems come alive,
Full of demented calliopes and pills that are every color of the rainbow
And someone’s hands interlocked with another’s

My other grandfather, the father of my mother, is an artist
He paints crisp lines, diamonds like the eyes of a cat in the night
And sketches with an open palm, shows stories of long ago
When my mother was nothing more than a child, unaware of how her father drank himself to sleep
Every single night
He couldn’t afford champagne or cognac, so most nights it was cheap beer that tasted like sawdust
And soon he’d become sawdust, floating on the wind, if not for that tiny voice inside
That said
Stop

My grandmother is a healer
A woman understood by few, the type to stay up late worrying
Over pain and personality, over dreams and nightmares
She can heal with a touch of the hand and a handful of pills and
Once worked hard to create a world free of the three letter disease no one wants to talk about
She’s always been there
Yet she still doesn’t know how important she is to me

My father is a lawyer
He advocates for the voiceless, raises himself up when there’s no one there to speak out
Loves no matter what, jokes like the father he is until the break of dawn
He raises me up with heavy hands and a heavier heart
Because we have our share of fights, our screaming and kicking, our pinning and pushing
But never has my love for him wavered

My mother is my world
She’s held many jobs, from unofficial pet store employee at eleven to director of a nonprofit for children in foster care at forty-five
Nowadays she works hard, keeps her eyelids from sagging through long days and longer nights
Raising her voice for children with no one to call mother
And I call her that with pride, because at the end of the day,
We would be nothing but stardust
Without our mothers

My grandfather is a poet, and I’m one, too
Bridging the gap of generations with words
He taught me how to write through a book sent in the mail
And I’m still grateful, looking over the tattered pages of his poetry until the sun catches up to the moon
He taught me how to live, how to write
My grandmother taught me how to heal
My father taught me how to speak out
And my mother taught me
To be myself.